’There is with you, as there was with us in 1847, a general malaise in the midst of general prosperity.  Your people seem, as was the case with ours, to have become tired of their public men, and to be losing faith in their institutions.  What else do these complaints of what is called “the system” mean?  When you complain that the Government patronage is bartered for political support, that the dunces of a family are selected for the public service, and selected expressly because they could not get on in an open profession; that as their places are a sort of property, they are promoted only by seniority, and never dismissed for any, except for some moral, delinquency; that therefore the seniors in all your departments are old men, whose original dulness has been cherished by a life without the stimulus of hope or fear, you describe a vessel which seems to have become too crazy to endure anything but the calmest sea and the most favourable winds.  You have tried its sea-worthiness in one department, your military organisation, and you find that it literally falls to pieces.  You are incapable of managing a line of operations extending only seven miles from its base.  The next storm may attack your Colonial Administration.  Will that stand any better?  Altogether your machinery seems throughout out of gear.  If you set to work actively and fearlessly, without reference to private interests, or to private expectations, or to private feelings, to repair, remove and replace, you may escape our misfortunes; but I see no proofs that you are sufficiently bold, or indeed that you are sufficiently alarmed.  Then as to what is passing here.  A year ago we probably overrated your military power.  I believe that now we most mischievously underrate it.  A year ago nothing alarmed us more than a whisper of the chance of a war with England.  We talk of one now with great composure.  We believe that it would not be difficult to throw 100,000 men upon your shores, and we believe that half that number would walk over England or Ireland.  You are mistaken if you think that these opinions will die away of themselves, or will be eradicated by anything but some decisive military success.  I do not agree with those who think that it is your interest that Russia should submit while Sebastopol stands.  You might save money and men by a speedy peace, but you would not regain your reputation.  If you are caught by a peace before you have an opportunity of doing so, I advise you to let it be on your part an armed peace.  Prepare yourselves for a new struggle with a new enemy, and let your preparations be, not only as effective as you can make them, but also as notorious.’[1]

[Footnote 1:  Note inserted by M de Tocqueville in my Journal, after reading the preceding conversation.